Yuva Parivartan, an initiative of Kherwadi Social Welfare Association, had its 7th summit themed “Skilling Rural India – The Technology Imperative” on 22, August, 2017 in Mumbai. Eminent panel of experts led by Padma Vibhushan Dr. R.A. Mashelkar, Chairman of the Advisory Board of KSWA and well known Scientist and Innovator, which pressed on the need and ways of fast tracking skilling to reach larger numbers of youth especially in rural India.

“Technology can give wings to skilling” and the eminent speakers at the Yuva Parivartan gave wings to the summit as it was a grand success.

Dr. Mashelkar highlighted the need to create an inclusive India, an India that is able to meet the aspirations of the youth by providing those skills that would be relevant for the jobs of tomorrow. He further added that disruptive innovations is the key to pole vault not just leap frog and be ready for meeting the skilling needs of industry 4.0. How is it possible? Just four months ago we were ranked 151 in the world for mobile data transmission but now we rank 4th with 110 crores of mobile data transmission. The need to be backed by technology and policy to achieve our goals is what something Dr. Mashelkar stressed upon.

Mr. Kher who is the president of the Yuva Parivartan was next to speak at the summit said “we considered ourselves the champions of lost causes, as skilling was least popular subject for social sectors and making a difference.

He was quick to point out facts like 65% of the population lives in rural India and 92% of all jobs are in the informal sector and only 8% in the “Formal” sector. Talking about the skill deficit problem that country faces today and emphasizing on the theme for the summit he said, “For the first time in 20 years we see a ray of sunshine that technology imperative is something that can be an approach towards tackling this problem.”

Skilling Deprived Youth – The Technology Imperative

With the millennia’s now comprising the main the component of our students with generations Z to follow and in the context of all the stakeholders have failed to address the large numbers 350 million youth, in terms of skilling and livelihoods, Technology is the only answer to salvaging the idea of the ‘Demographic Divide’. The following 2 options are:

· One, ‘Blended Learning’ which is a combination of courseware taught through CDs followed by practical’s which require the presence of an instructor.

· The second option to use the smart phones to enable access to content where there is connectivity

Also witness the use of the word “Jobs” instead of “Livelihood “which should be the operative nomenclature for Rural Incomes.

Mr. Manish Kumar, CEO NSDC, gave several examples where technology was enabling livelihood generation for rural youth. One of them was about girls in rural Orissa, providing data for algorithms used for driverless cars in the California, USA. He also mentioned that artificial intelligence and virtual reality programs are gaining momentum and helping bridge the gap between urban and rural India. He lauded Yuva Parivartan’s effort so far and assured further collaboration with the organization.

Mr. Amit Chandra, said that while the impact of technology can be seen in several sectors, skill development has not witnessed the transformative power of technology. He said that entrepreneurial skills and risk taking ability should be an integral part of all skill development programs. He gave an example of a young AI scientists who wanted to work only Panipat for his project reiterating what Dr. Mashelkar said that millenials are not looking for jobs outside India but want to build something of their own in India.

In further discussion Kumar Vivek mentioned how technology is being used in Africa and countries like Zanzibar where radio waves are used to send the messages, similarly in Pakistan text messages were used to reach out to the people in rural areas and works like magic. When asked if the technology is being used to its full potential Dr. Amir Ullah Khan said “a loud yes”

He also added that to get youth a job requires us to address three handicaps, 1) literacy, 2) Social (Women are not allowed to take up jobs) and 3rd is the information gap, and the only thing that helped them fought those handicaps was technology.

Mr. Mahesh Ranade concluded the summit by talking about difficulties we faced before applying technology and how Yuva Parivartan app and tablet helps by filling the real-time data in rural areas and getting the work done faster and is a right way to reach out more people effectively.

“We are still not home we are a work in progress”, he said and then mentioned Benjamin Franklin’s quote that “There are kind of people in the world, the Movable, Immovable and the Moved”. He rightly said that Yuva Parivartan has moved with digitization.

He ended his speech with a beautiful hindi quote “Sochne se kaha milte hain tammanao ke shahair , chalne ki zid bhi zaroori hain manzilo ko paane ke liye.” Which means we can’t reach the city of dreams just by thinking but we need to walk the path, rightly enforcing the motto of this year at Yuva Parivartan “Kaho nahi Karo?”